Why Are Democrats Losing Rural America?

The most salient aspect of life in rural Africa is the vibrant nature of agricultural communities here. In a literal sense, equatorial sunlight makes it possible for trees to grow to full height in 5 years; the rural landscape is literally vibrant and lush. In a figurative sense, the communities are just as vibrant as the vegetation - families are huge, farm plots are small and plots are continually subdivided with each passing generation; the population density in rural Western Kenya is higher than most American suburbs and overwhelmingly composed of young children. People live their lives in dense, tightly knit rural communities - drinking, having children, playing football, going to church and talking about all four on Facebook. I don't want to wax idealistic too much - economic pressure is high, the infant mortality rate is shocking and education is sparse. Still, the discrepancy between the youthful, energetic village life of rural Africa and the dilapidated, nostalgic pessimism of rural America is striking. What accounts for the difference - and more importantly, what could be done to fix it?



Most Americans don't seem to care much about the state of the America's rural areas, to their own detriment. Rural America put Trump into office; the demographic shifts that convince young Americans to move to cities give rural areas disproportionate senatorial and electoral college power. One estimate holds that by 2040, 70% of Americans will be represented by 30% of senators. As we say in the software world - "that's not a bug, it's a feature". Rural representation was built into American representative government as a way to prevent cities from dominating the nation's politics (admittedly the original intent was to give slaveholders political power, but the principle still applies). Centralized power is dangerous - America's cities already have nearly complete economic and social power, which is balanced by rural America's political sway. This is actually a clever political design; America's bicameral legislature includes a checks-and-balances dynamic that is designed to prevent civil war and social collapse due to cities ignoring rural areas. Some politicians have proposed dismantling this dynamic by doing away with the electoral college; while discussing this blog post one friend of mine proposed that all Americans should just move to cities. Assuming these dramatic transformations in America's power structures are unlikely to happen, in my mind the best solution to America's political problems are to improve the country's rural areas - specifically to bring young people, youthful energy and youthful ideals back to rural America.

I was raised in a rural setting by a middle-class liberal family, but have lived much of my post-college life in cities. I don't quite fit into the rural community, but I'm also not part of the liberal elite. I enjoy some parts of living in cities - cities allow you to choose your friends much more selectively than is possible in a rural area and the range of entertainment options is much larger. Despite the amenities and social opportunities I still have a rather dim view of city culture - it's strange to me how cities can be progressive in accepting any lifestyle while completely disregarding the human rights of their poorest citizens. The only way to survive in a vast metropolis like New York is to tune out the vast majority of your environment. My defining experience visiting New York was encapsulated in one incident: while accompanying a friend to his apartment, we passed his girlfriend on the street. Neither of them looked up or recognized each other. This may be normal for NYC, but strikes me as an impoverished, disconnected way to live. From an outside perspective, cities seem full of rootless people who spend extravagant amounts of money on pointless status symbols, lost in abstractions while remaining intentionally ignorant of the real world. I can't pretend to be perfect - the version of myself in a place like Nairobi or New York City is the worst version possible, the sort of man who can stare straight through a homeless person without noticing him/her. From a rural perspective, cities lack morality - I don't mean religion, I mean basic human decency that comes from knowing your neighbors and not ignoring your entire milieu. Rural areas are far from perfect - they are quite hostile to outside influence. I'm not sure I even count as a local in my hometown anymore, I've been gone too long to be part of the community. I believe this insular hostility can be traced back to three sources - brain drain, economic grievances and cultural derision. If America as a country wants to improve rural America (and indirectly fix our politics via improved Senatorial representation), those are the three key areas on which to focus.

Brain Drain

The brain drain is the most serious issue affecting rural America right now. As a family member put it, "just because there's no hope, no jobs and no opportunity here doesn't mean it's not a great place to live". Anyone with ambition and the means to do so left my hometown years ago; some are starting to trickle back, but the overwhelming flow is of bright young people leaving rural America to find work in the cities. This isn't just happening in America; I've seen the same phenomenon repeated from Marrakesh to Cape Town. In my hometown the two main employment opportunities available are drug dealer and prison guard; that needs to change. Economic incentives for starting companies in rural areas and encouraging young people to remain in them are essential to keeping rural areas functioning - without youthful energy these areas become bitter, xenophobic and susceptible to Trump's brand of nostalgic authoritarianism. With the growth of internet technologies, there's no particular reason that my job needs to be done in a city; office culture is an obsolete concept in much of the tech world. Not every job can be done remotely, but many can - current economic policies force talented young people to move to cities for reasons that simply no longer apply. Tax incentives for American companies to decentralize and allow (in-country) remote work combined with investments in rural high-speed internet access would make a large difference. At the very least, it would be nice if my cellphone worked as well in rural New York as it does in rural Western Kenya.

Economic Grievances

Economic grievances are closely tied into the brain drain - where there's no work there's no money. The primary economic issue in rural America is "where has all the money gone?". Rural America is falling apart both literally and figuratively. Much of the countryside has a sense that America use to have wealth and power, but has now fallen on hard times - thus the resonance of "Make America Great Again". America has wealth, it's just increasingly concentrated in the big cities. My intuition is that racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia and related out-group persecution have their roots in economic insecurity - people become much more tolerant when they don't have to worry about their future. Focus on economic issues first and social acceptance will follow.

Many people in rural areas are on welfare, medicaid or another form of government assistance; from an outside perspective it seems insane that rural areas are also the first to want to dismantle these programs. From the rural perspective, taking government assistance involves a loss of dignity and strong sense of self-hatred coupled with social persecution (especially for so-called "welfare kids"). This is one of the biggest cultural differences between America and East Africa - the acceptability of asking for help. In rural Africa, asking for help and giving it freely goes beyond "being nice" - it's more like a retirement plan/savings plan/insurance policy across the entire community. My Luganda tutor once described it as "There's no way an African would live alone like you expats do. The minute my family found that I had a place in the city I'd have five cousins coming to live with me without paying rent." This expectation of receiving help is not the case in rural America - self-sufficiency isn't just a cultural value, it's a way of life. The frontier ideal of self-sufficiency still persists despite its degradation into a caricature - go peruse the hunting section of your nearest Walmart to see what I mean by this. Rural America has a schizophrenic attitude toward receiving aid because of the conflict between a desperate need for help and an equally tenacious cultural imperative of self-sufficiency. The two biggest changes that could improve this would be to restructure welfare programs so working a job does not forfeit benefits and to create New Deal - style "makework" projects. For rural areas with natural attractions, one of the successful models I've seen in Africa is extensive permitting that requires any visitors to employ local guides. Admittedly this is much less necessary for a day hike in the Adirondacks versus climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, but the economic benefits to Tanzania have been huge; as makework projects go climbing mountains all day isn't a bad job. Economic subsidies that make it possible to run a small farm in competition with industrialized mega-farms would help as well - farming and the hard work required to sustain it fit much better into the rural psyche than passive acceptance of government assistance. Rural America wants jobs more than it wants money; money without a job is degrading.

Cultural Derision

Finally, the simplest change that urban Democrats could make to their interactions with rural voters is to stop mocking them. I'm a huge fan of that quintessential liberal show "The Simpsons", but several of the Simpsons characters (like Apu) have become problematic since the show's inception. I'd like to focus on Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel.



This guy.



Take a close look at him - over the series run, this character has been depicted as inbred, illiterate, bestial and generally not worthy of the label of human. It's not just the Simpsons - so called "white trash" are the last acceptable cultural stereotype. Just imagine for a minute the resulting uproar if Cletus was depicted as a black man - there would be active boycotts of the Simpsons by the ACLU and Southern Poverty Law Center. Dave Chappelle even mentioned the trope in one of his latest standup acts - he was astonished that rich white people could refer to poor white people as white trash. Why is this trope ok? Why are otherwise liberal-minded people so dismissive and sadistic about white rural poverty?

Back in High School, I witnessed the reappropriation of Redneck culture by comedians like Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy - suddenly rural teenagers near the Canadian Border in upstate New York were flying the confederate flag and adopting Southern accents. I trace a direct line from this cultural reappropriation of "Redneck" as "Cool" to Trump voters who have reappropriated the term "Deplorable" as "Authentic". Mocking rural populations doesn't shame them into changing their minds, instead it causes people to become more hostile and entrenched in their resentment. Democrats are infamous for identity politics - especially in the last 10 years the party has become (from an outside perspective) the mouthpiece of "the queer black women of Brooklyn". That's cool; those women need a voice and intersectionality matters. However, calling someone "white trash" is fundamentally incompatible with Democratic party principles. Rednecks are people too and they deserve basic human compassion just as much as queer black women in Brooklyn.

The two biggest changes to help this would be rural media representation and an end to the "white trash" stereotypes. Rural areas increasingly feel that mainstream representations are no longer American; that TV (except for Fox News) has left them behind. With the death of local newspapers and consolidation of local TV networks, rural areas are increasingly left without a voice (despite their over-representation in horror movies). Government subsidies on rural journalism and rural media could go far in bolstering a rural voice. Technology has made this easier than ever; anyone with a smartphone and a laptop can produce near-professional grade media, but it's not economically feasible to do so. Only Fox News is telling rural America that it is cool to have roots in the "real" America; is it surprising that people prefer flattering media coverage to mocking media coverage?

In a pithy summary - the future of American politics depends on making rural America livable for young people. I'll freely admit I'm a hypocrite while writing this - I am not yet ready to give up on my hopes and dreams in order to be near my family and hometown. If you're from a city, will you ever have to make that decision?

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